People, Places, Animals
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20 December 2007 - 24 February 2008
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The real-life photos of Richard Billingham’s shambolic family life will feature in a survey exhibition of work by this acclaimed British artist at the Australian Centre for Contemporary Art (ACCA).
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Born in 1970, Billingham studied at the University of Sunderland as a painter, but came to prominence as a photographer with a series of candid pictures of his family – housebound, alcoholic father Ray who drinks his own homebrew, tattooed, oversized mother Elizabeth, brother Jason and their assorted pets - as they live out their life in their small council flat in the Midlands of Britain.
The photos were published in 1996 in the book, Ray’s A Laugh, which gained notoeriety in Britain, and were a crucial part of the infamous 1997 Saatchi exhibition Sensation, which featured modern British art at the Royal Academy in London. The photos offer an insight into Billingham’s dysfunctional home life, and to a largely hidden, unsettling urban existence. Billingham was subsequently shortlisted for the Turner Prize in 2001.
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People, Places, Animals is the first major survey of Billingham’s work, and includes a selection of never before exhibited early photographs of father Ray, as well as Billingham’s 2006 photos and videos featuring caged animals from zoos around the world. Billingham’s landscapes from the Black Country series, as well as video works such as Fishtank, commissioned by ArtAngel will also be shown.
“When I first saw Richard Billingham’s work it took me a while to get to grips with his honesty,” said Juliana Engberg, Artistic Director of ACCA. “I wondered if they were cruel, intrusive and sensational – exploitative. But I also found them to be touching and humorous and absolutely human in a way that was not so much exploitative as devastating. Since then I have always found Richard’s works to be compelling whether they are still, empty places, or as is the case with his amazing Zoo series, compassionate while definitely melancholic,” she said.
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People, Places, Animals: The Works of Richard Billingham
December 20, 2007 - February 24, 2008
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Australian Centre for Contemporary Art, 111 Sturt Street, Southbank.
Gallery hours: Tuesday-Sunday 11am–6pm
Mondays by appointment.
Admission: Free
For further media information: Katrina Hall
03 9697 9999, mobile 0421 153 046
email khall@accaonline.org.au
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